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Evocative Images of Lost Toronto

Another photo by Notman, a rather moody view of Toronto Street in the 1890's:

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Those skinny trees are so tall! What are they? In all my years in TO I’ve never seen a row of trees like that!
I am not a 'tree guy' but they look like perfectly normal Columnar (Lombardy) Poplars - I have not seen many here in TO but they are quite common elsewhere and are often planted in rows.
 
I am not a 'tree guy' but they look like perfectly normal Columnar (Lombardy) Poplars - I have not seen many here in TO but they are quite common elsewhere and are often planted in rows.

Me neither but that's what they look like to me. Fast growing but short lived. Good if you need a quick windbreak but you need to plant something else that will outlive them. They are also shallow-rooted. I had some on a property in Uxbridge that were dying off. I cut them off about 4' up then used my truck to simply push the stumps out of the ground.
 
Me neither but that's what they look like to me. Fast growing but short lived. Good if you need a quick windbreak but you need to plant something else that will outlive them. They are also shallow-rooted. I had some on a property in Uxbridge that were dying off. I cut them off about 4' up then used my truck to simply push the stumps out of the ground.
Whatever they were, they certainly were short lived as they don't appear in other pics of Jarvis after the time of this pic (which I think is around 1880). There is a wonderful series of photos taken by the Parks Dept. of the Jarvis Street trees taken in 1916 in the Toronto Archives in which the trees look more like standard elms and maples (amazing how well street trees do when there is no salt on the roads):
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Me neither but that's what they look like to me. Fast growing but short lived. Good if you need a quick windbreak but you need to plant something else that will outlive them. They are also shallow-rooted. I had some on a property in Uxbridge that were dying off. I cut them off about 4' up then used my truck to simply push the stumps out of the ground.
Interesting article on Lombardy Poplars - a dangerous tree
 
If they are/were oaks they would be 'Columnar Oaks" as regular English oaks are more'normally" shaped trees.
True. Of course neither columnar English Oaks nor poplars have ever been popular street trees in Toronto given they don’t create a canopy over the street and can crowd the sidewalk. There is also a columnar Norway Maple and that may be the mystery tree:

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Whatever they were, they certainly were short lived as they don't appear in other pics of Jarvis after the time of this pic (which I think is around 1880). There is a wonderful series of photos taken by the Parks Dept. of the Jarvis Street trees taken in 1916 in the Toronto Archives in which the trees look more like standard elms and maples (amazing how well street trees do when there is no salt on the roads):View attachment 223115View attachment 223116View attachment 223117View attachment 223118View attachment 223119View attachment 223120
In the early 1880s the city planted a lot of elms and maples on Jarvis Street. There seem to be lots of elms in these pictures. The Tussock Moth was a problem. They used to spray them with arsenate of lead. There should be quite a toxic soil legacy.
 

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